sometimes we inspired by some wonderful artwork, then we create a character based on Squall Leonheart or Yuna from FFX. or, too much reading One Piece makes someone get inspired by Zoro or Sanji, and when they create an original character, they put the very same traits such as short green hair, shark-looks-swordman, etc.

then when other people see the OC, they accuse the poor artist for plagiarism. of course the artist need to defend themself. "I'm not copying youuuu......!" or .. "I'm not a plagiator!! It's pure my OC...!!"

what I think when I saw those guys is .. they can't difference between plagiarism and inspired.

I admit that some of my OC looks like Zoro or Luffy, and most of my main character looks a lot like Seifer from FF8. but so far, nobody accused me for being plagiarism. because I simply understand how far should an inspired character be before people decided to put it on the copied character black lists.

first thing first, an artist should understand what is Plagiarism.
second thing to do, the artist should get rid of some unnescessary traits from the OC's prototype.

example,
see this character :

well, that's my OC, I named him Zhuge or sometimes people called him Jethro.
he is a raider, but claimed himself as treasure hunter.
skilled swordman with Kung-fu based fighting style.
it was the first design of Zhuge before I changed him to this ..

(the left one)

if you haven't recognize yet, here's some spoiler of what characters inspired me when creating him.


but so far, nobody told me that I copy those existing characters.
because I get rid of some important traits from the prototype, to blend it with all creativity I got (maybe it's not much of creativity, but, well, at least I've tried)

about example of plagiarism characters .... so far I don't have one. maybe you could add it by yourself?

last advice from me, ... you are not living alone in this world.
6 billion people living in this world, not only you are the fan of an published art (anime/manga/games). you should understand that not everybody thinks that you do not copy some art. if you don't intent to copy it, but ppl still accused you of that, then maybe it's a warning to change your OC for everyone's sake.

======================================
please understand that I write this not to blame someone or with bad intention to someone.
I just want to share that there are something called "Plagiarism" and something called "Inspired"
and the difference between them were so thin.

oh, you are very welcome to share some your experience with this matter.
======================================
English is not my first language, I terribly sorry if some of my letters hurt or insulted anyone. I never meant to.

Live long and prosper~
warm regards,

Fire Cyclops

Well, the closest thing I've ever experienced for this matter IIRC is Xerus Gransveld. Some people tells me he looks like Claude Kenni (Even you Kai). The matter of fact is, yes. He looks like Claude. But, I made their personality, style, and powers are completely different. In short, I build Xerus's personality not to be like Claude Kenni. I designed him, to be wise and strong fighter with defensive style (Don't know what people say about this. If he isn't wise enough, I'll try to fix it again) while his disciple, Heero, has offensive style of fighting. Not to mention Heero is kinda harsh too sometimes. Unlike Heero who will smack his opponent's face several time to unleash his rage, Xerus will put everything in one blow and will unleash it at the right time. Both are like a different coin side but they are good friends even though their personality are different.


One thing I can't get rid of is, Xerus has a power of reading mind. Yeah. Maybe this is the closest to ripoff (SDK Muramasa). But not only Xerus having this power. His father, his twin brother, and his sister (Lumina) also have this kind of power. All phoenix family has this power. You decide.



The bottomline is, Xerus and Claude has a different personality. Claude has a standard human personality. He is humble enough to admit to Rena, that he is not the Hero of Light from the legend even though he has a phase gun with him, and he can act as superior with his phase gun in Rena's homeplanet since Rena's homeplanet is under-developed planet, but he doesn't. I designed Xerus to be a quiet people (Claude isn't quiet), wise (don't know if he is wise enough... let's see some people's opinion about him) but when he sees someone need his help, he can be talkative and can be furious when someone already crossed the line. He isn't made to be a main character. He was made to be main character's superior friend with greater battle capability and would lift the main character whenever he is down. That's the role of Xerus Gransveld.

@Fuuma
I'd say that what makes your Xerus similiar to Claude is ... the red bandana, and the clothing.
u know... leather jacket or something. that's similiar.

Well, to tell the truth, Ippiki and Hana, technically were inspired by Nana and her twin sister Momo from To Love-Ru, as both are twins, Ippiki has command over Animals like Nana, and Hana has control/love for plants like Momo, but aside from those, I guess Hana and Ippiki aren't that similar to those two anymore, especially given how Momo's acting now in the Darkness manga o_o.

@yuji
do you have their pictures? I want to see them all.
your OC's and their prototypes.

Well, I got early versions of characters lying around, but not all of them, some characters don't have a "prototype" version like Hana and Ippiki di, but there ARE some XP.

I just want to see their similiarity. that's all cuz I don't know what is their appearance and technically I don't know who were you talking about. you know, I'm not really a big fan of anime

This difference between inspiration and plagiarism is like the difference between borrowing and stealing. It's like "made from real cheese" vs. "cheese-flavored product." One is good, one is gross, and sometimes you can't tell the difference, especially if you're my age. But ignorance is not an option for writers, no matter how young or old they are. That's why I'm going to show you the difference between the two.

First: inspiration. Inspiration is motivation or an idea that motivates you. Let's say you read "The Butterfly Dream," a passage by Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi. You analyze the passage in Philosophy class one morning and are intrigued by Zhuangzi's take on dreams and reality. This gives you an idea for a story about a young woman who wanders between two worlds, the "dream" world and the "real" world, living two separate lives while she strives to determine what's real and what's not. That is an example of inspiration in the sense that Zhuangzi's mystery got you thinking about reality and dreams. You like the question he raised about being one thing or another - real or fake, man or butterfly - and what makes something definitively what it is, and in your story you'd like to explore those same questions and themes. You take fragments of Zhuangzi's concept to use in your story, allowing room to develop your own characters, setting, theme and other elements.

This is different from plagiarism. Just in case you were asleep every day in English class from 5th grade onwards, plagiarism is when you deliberately copy an author's words or ideas and claim them as your own. (Just to cover my butt: that definition isn't my own.) In this example, I'm going to start you off with the end product: a story "inspired" by another story. This story is about a young woman who leaves her abusive relatives to practice magic in Pigbumpz Wizard Academy located in the New York Sewer System. She has a klutzy blonde friend who wants to be the best Witchy-Softball player ever and a broody, dark-haired love interest who is the smartest guy around. Unbeknownst to her, the main character has descended from a line of powerful wizards and has the potential to save the world. The villain of the story is responsible for separating her from her parents and aims to kill her at any cost. Sound kind of familiar? It should. This story was "inspired" by the Harry Potter series, and it's quite obvious from the beginning. This is a pure rip-off even though the characters, settings, and other elements have been changed. The changes that were made were superficial and did little to rework the plot. It's still Harry, but Harry is in a skirt in New York, instead of in pants in England.

Not all cases of plagiarism are this clear-cut, but I hope this gives you an idea of the difference between the two. Another tidbit that might help you tell the two apart is to ask yourself this question: "Did this start off as a fan-fiction?" In other words, when you got the inspiration for the story, was it set in the exact same universe with your main character as the friend/love interest/rival of the real main character? Pretty much in every case, this will lead to plot-jacking, because you'll want to keep the same story elements and insert yourself or your character in the protagonist's spot.

When you're truly inspired by a previous work or concept, you re-imagine or reinterpret it. You're not rewriting exactly what a dead man has already written, you're rethinking it. Be like a bee taking pollen from flowers to create your own brand of delicious literary honey with bits of inspiration. Don't be like Vanilla Ice and rip the "ding-ding-ding-duhduh-ding-ding" baseline off of "Under Pressure" and call your ‘original' song "Ice Ice Baby."

source credit : http://www.ndmcolumns.com/features/inspiration-vs-plagiarism-1.1222719

Well, IMO plagiarism is just making an idea someone else thought of as your own. Inspiration is the act of getting an idea from something and then acting accordingly. To me, it is usually emotionally based, whether one amazing thing could actually have been someone else's idea but it is only recognized by the public and judged by the said public.

wonder if there's two author, never met up, write a very similiar story.
one of them comes out first and get famous.
then the other one published his story.
then the public thinks that the second guy is a plagiat.

what if that happens?

I thought plagiarism is outright copying a characters looks completely?, Like that what's his name guy did with that story of his that had a Bleach knock-off, or that Naruto knock-off manga? XP.

Still feels like an emotional issue to me. One person thinks they made it, so they think anyone else that made it is a plagiarizer, but maybe that person came up with it first.

@skyblade
wonder if that case exist.
you know Avatar the movie?
James Cameroon's

I heard that somebody in China claims that he write a novel like that and thinks James Cameroon plagiate him.

Hmm, could that be inspiration, to me it seems to be based on a point of view, unless there can be an exact date to each event to seen which occurred first.

but what if that China guy and James Cameroon never met before?
they never talk, never knew each other,
it's just a pure coincidence

Exactly. It's a point of view matter. One feels that they have the right while the other also feels the same way. It all comes down to the support they both receive. Whoever has the most support gets their way, and the other will be accused of plagiarism. The government however is the judge of these events and they choose whoever deserves the prize of keeping their idea.

hmm ... I saw it in wikipedia before that plagiarism is never a crime but it's about moralle.
so I think the goverment will not give punishment for those who accused as a plagiat..?
or the guilty person should pay some credit to the copyright owner?

True that. Actually, if one person copies for profit, then it is a crime. If a person copies but does it for his/her own fun, then it is not. As long as a side does not take the copying as a problem, there is no problem. Which is why I think it is emotionally based.